Tag Archives: James Rutherford

What do you do when, almost a year into development of a play, the play disappears?

You could cut and run. Or, you could rally the team you’ve assembled, and make something else. Something grounded in the work you’ve done up to that point—but also, something beautifully unique.

That’s just what happened to the team behind M-34 and Cloud of Fools Theater Company‘s All That Dies and Rises; listen in as director James Rutherford, choreographer Laura Butler Rivera, and performer Jon Froehlich discuss making rorschach blots, why we’re here, focusing on the excitement, and the wisdom of Peter Brook.

“…if it’s too abstract, it doesn’t work. It needs to look enough like something that your mind tries to figure it out, but not enough like anything that your mind is able to succeed…”

To drastically, drastically oversimplify his play—this what happens when an easy pun is chased down to the point where it becomes a complex theatrical statement.

If they all turn out like this, a strong case can be made that we should all chase such simple puns more often.

Listen in as the adaptors/directors of The Importance of Being Ernest Hemingway, James Rutherford and Elliot B. Quick, discuss the complexity of Oscar Wilde’s puns, what it really means to be earnest, and how even when things work out just perfectly, there can still be hurt & pain.

“It did actually start from a pun — and then we started working on it, and were really shocked and appalled that it was really fruitful territory, and that these two writers actually have a great deal to say to one another…”